Stop, Seven No Trumps
Nov. 13th, 2007 12:25 amI've still been playing bridge. Today I jumped to bid 7NT for the first time.
(For non bridge players: 7nt means you're going to take all 13 tricks, and without any suit as trumps. If you're playing with bidding boxes, this is the back-most card, and if you're exceptionally lucky, you'll be able to pull out the entire stack of thirty-five bidding cards and drop them on the table at once.)
Though it's pretty anti-climactic. I had 17 high card points, and two long suits, and partner made the opening bid, and when I saw this I groaned, as I expected him to be long in the suits I was short in, but instead he bid 2NT, meaning 20-22 points, and balanced lengths. That gives 37 between us, missing no ace and at most a king, so jumped straight to 7NT.
Actually, that didn't happen. I had a singleton jack (the only card of its suit, which isn't normally worth anything as it loses immediately if anyone plays queen, king or ace), and hadn't counted it, so thought we had 36 pts, which might conceivably be missing an ace, so I futzed about with three and four level bids trying to manoeuvre partner into a situation where I could find out how many aces he had with blackwood, before jumping to 7.
(For non bridge players: 7nt means you're going to take all 13 tricks, and without any suit as trumps. If you're playing with bidding boxes, this is the back-most card, and if you're exceptionally lucky, you'll be able to pull out the entire stack of thirty-five bidding cards and drop them on the table at once.)
Though it's pretty anti-climactic. I had 17 high card points, and two long suits, and partner made the opening bid, and when I saw this I groaned, as I expected him to be long in the suits I was short in, but instead he bid 2NT, meaning 20-22 points, and balanced lengths. That gives 37 between us, missing no ace and at most a king, so jumped straight to 7NT.
Actually, that didn't happen. I had a singleton jack (the only card of its suit, which isn't normally worth anything as it loses immediately if anyone plays queen, king or ace), and hadn't counted it, so thought we had 36 pts, which might conceivably be missing an ace, so I futzed about with three and four level bids trying to manoeuvre partner into a situation where I could find out how many aces he had with blackwood, before jumping to 7.